Not Providence, Not Really
by ProbableLurker
Summary: After a year and a half locked up in Happy Volts, Gary Smith is back at Bullworth with a plan to get Pete back to him - using any means necessary. Gary/Petey, Mature and dark themes, other warnings inside.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes: So, this is… not going to be a slow burn at all. You can expect it to get pretty shippy and a little smutty. There will also be somewhat heavy stuff in here, I will trigger warn appropriately at the beginning of the chapter that the potentially triggering stuff takes place.**

* * *

Being in an insane asylum gave Gary a lot more of a chance to reflect than he really wanted. He really doesn't want to spend all of his time in this hell hole thinking about all of his failures and regrets – or about the fact that he has a few too many of them for being all of fifteen years old – but it seems like his wants aren't really all that important to the doctors and therapists, or his parents… or his subconscious. That's probably why he keeps having these stupid dreams.

The dreams are always pretty much the same – with a few details here and there changing around a bit – and he has them every single night. _**Every**_. _**Single**_. _**Night**_. They come to him more like glorified flashbacks than actual dreams. The worst thing about them is that they're almost always about Petey.

Because of course he has to keep obsessing over Femme-boy like that. It's the only thing that he's actually sorry about. As far as he's concerned; Jimmy, Crabblesnitch and all the idiots at Bullworth can go fuck themselves with something sharp and rusty.

He had no idea what it was about his dainty little wimp of a "Friend" (Or "Victim", more likely that was the better way to put their relationship) but he was still fixated on him. No. actually, "Fixate" wasn't the right word for what he felt – it was more like an all consuming obsession that he had fueled by lust, anger and confusion with himself.

What he felt for Petey was a total contradiction for what what he felt about Jimmy – he _hated_ Jimmy and that was easy for him to deal with. All he wanted from the ginger haired moron was to hurt him, maim him or at the very least ruin his life beyond repair. But with Petey… he just wanted him, he wanted to own him – and not just in the way that he had before he had been committed to Happy Volts.

He grits his teeth in annoyance, and quickly reminds himself that it's just temporary, because the doctors are already talking about his release and readmission into Bullworth come September. Then he would be roomed again with Petey, because no one else had the patience to deal with Gary and Crabblesnitch didn't want the headache of dealing with whining teenagers. It was practically a guaranteed thing – especially seeing as how Petey was head boy now.

He grinned then, sliding his hand down into the front of the paper scrubs that he was forced to wear by the sycophants that ran this place. Gary guessed that he probably had about twenty minutes before one of the nurses came in to see if he was still breathing. That was more than enough time to fantasize about all of the dirty, bordering on sickening things that he was going to do to Petey.

He couldn't wait, he even had the makings of a plan in the works. But that wasn't really all that surprising, he _always_ had a plan in the works. He wouldn't be Gary Smith if he didn't.

* * *

Gary Smith sat in Dr. Crabblesnitch's office – his fingernails digging grooves into the sides of the stiff and uncomfortable chair that he was posted to. His mother and grandparents stood behind him, doing little other than practicing their best, "We Are So Concerned For Gary's Mental Health" faces while the rat faced principal went into his tried and true, practiced speech about keeping his nose clean.

He kept his face blank and clinically disinterested – because it was the only way to keep himself from snapping out in anger at the circle of authority figures. He couldn't stand them. Any of them. They were three people he couldn't stand and here they were, circling him like vultures.

He let himself tune out for the most part until he felt like the man was done. The next thing he heard was the head's "… Do I make myself clear, boy?"

He sighed, because he couldn't really stop himself. "Crystal, sir." He said, with no small amount of sarcasm lacing his voice. "I'm assuming there will be conditions to this?" He made sure to speak in a blank, bored tone – like he was completely doped out on medications. "I'm guessing that I'm on probation or something?"

"Not something." Crabblesnitch continued, "You _are_ on probation, Smith, and you'll be on probation until we're sure that you're not a danger." Gary knew that he'd get off of it before they were sure, he knew that this was lip service for his parents. "You have three strikes before you are expelled." he snorted at that derisively, he couldn't help that and Crabblesnitch corrected himself, "Before you are expelled _again._ You will take your medications every day." _Yup._ _Makes sense._ _"_ And you will be paired with our best, most well adjusted student. Peter Kowalski, I'm sure you remember him, Smith. You were roommates before, weren't you?"

Crabblesnitch was getting up in his face as much as he was allowed to with Gary's parents standing so close to him. What a creep. He didn't know how he managed to smile and be nice to the mans' face before this. Gary managed to redirect himself, "You're rooming me with little Petey again?" He crooned, pretending to be surprised. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" he added laughingly, "I don't know if you knew but he, ah, he kind of freaking hates me! I mean…"

"Well, it doesn't matter what either of you want." The head snapped, "Kowalski has a responsibility to this school. And you? You have no choice in the matter, Smith. No choice." Every word that he spoke was condescending and full of smugness. "Bullworth Academy is taking you back out of the kindness of our hearts."

Gary snorted at that, _'And the fact that the Smith family has donated enough money for a planetarium, a new gym and more dorm buildings._ ' he thought, but he smiled and shrugged. "I guess you're right about that." he said, "There's nothing I can do, I'm guessing you told Fe…Petey about this already?"

"He'll just have to deal with it," Crabblesnitch said in a hand waving sort of manner. "We'll have a few prefects guide you to your room." he added, before gesturing over to one of the large blue coated giants of teens. "Make sure that Mister Smith gets to his room safely and without causing anymore trouble."

Both of the prefects nodded before hoisting him up, rougher than they really had to, and leading him off back to the dorms. He frowned and allowed them to rough him up a little – he knew that he needed to play nice for his plan to work, he couldn't let anyone at this school know that the only thing that had changed about him was that he had gotten even better at manipulating and lying to people.

He let his mind wander while he walked – always plotting, always planning and never not thinking – and before he realized it he was being pushed back into his room without even a word from the two prefects (Why did they need two of those giants to lead him back? He thought, Seems pretty unnecessary.)

He sat on his bed, his bags already in the room, and waited for Petey to come back so he could properly greet the girly boy himself.

* * *

Pete Kowalski had come to realize, after being Head Boy for at least six non-consecutive months, that it was _boring…_ even if he was really, really, _really_ good at it. He was a good mediator, he had decent ideas for the school and he was always desperate to help people out whether or not they really wanted it from him. He was a helper – or maybe even an enabler, judging by his very weird relationship with Gary Smith – and for once in his life it was actually working out for him.

Because of Jimmy, Bullworth was a bright, beautiful new world – the cliques were getting along, bullying was at an all time low (the prefects were bored, that's how peaceful it was.) and Bullworth was finally starting to seem like an actual, real school and not just a holding place for future felons and corporate lawyers. Ugh, corporate lawyers… disgusting.

The most important thing that he had made happen at the academy was to induct a student union of all students from all cliques, (except for the bullies, because how would they help to improve the school. Why would they want to?) so instead of just him and whoever the school president was (It had been Earnest twice now.) arguing and talking circles around each other.

He had thought it a really good idea at the time; have Pete, the class president and two members of each clique (preferably one of each gender, because that felt a little more equal) together so that they could discuss school things, like the dances and other events or even things that they wanted to start.

So he had Earnest, Beatrice, Bucky, Mandy, Ted, Lola, Vance, Pinky and Bif all in one room representing their cliques and it didn't take Pete long to realize that he had made a terrible, _terrible_ mistake. It was one of those realizations that you could only have when you were in the middle of a screaming match about, of all the stupid things, the theme for the winter formal.

It was probably a little too early to talk about it, but Pete wasn't in the position to have any opinions about it – if Pinky and Mandy wanted to ruin their… friendship(?) over which of the two of them had more social status and who between them was the prettiest, then good for them.

Pete couldn't say much as he had then had less than no opinion about the upcoming dance and on the night of it, Pete would be in his room and on his laptop finally catching up on his homework and enjoying the peace and quiet that he rarely ever got.

He desperately needed that peace and quiet. Pete let the bickering wash over him for a few minutes before he decided to intervene himself into the chaos. "Alright," He said, straining to keep his voice and not just decide to give up on his job (like anyone would allow him to quit, ha. Funny joke.) "So, I umm, what are the options here? Because, there's so much yelling going on that I can't tell what anyone is saying." he said, using passive aggression to stop himself from actually screaming.

Pinky was the first one to speak up between the two overly popular girls, "Well, _I_ want something regal and beautiful, yet very romantic like… like _Pride And Prejudice_ but in the winter so it's snowy…and I get to be a princess. Or, or maybe something like-"

Pinky was cut off by Mandy grumbling under her breath, "You want some Disney princess garbage? Makes sense." After she said that, Pete could safely say that this whole thing was probably not about the upcoming dance. What it was actually about, though, he couldn't say.

"Excuse me Mandy, but this is not Disney princess 'garbage'! I am a princess!" Pinky was practically screaming and she stomped her foot on the ground for emphasis. "

"I know, I know, you deserved to be treated like one." Mandy seemed less angry and more tired of the situation. Pete could understand that – he had been in her exact situation more times than he could count – but it didn't make him any less bothered by their bickering.

"I do!" The preppy girl agreed in a loud, angry tone. She turned to where Pete sat, trying his best not to make eye contact with anyone else in the room because he felt so awkward about all of this, and spoke to him in a pleasant and calm manner. Pete thought that she was putting on her best "First Lady" vocie for him, "Peter, I just want something wholesome and romantic that everyone can enjoy. Even the poors."

Beatrice scoffed, speaking for the first time since the meeting had started. "Oh, that's so nice of you to think about the poor, unfettered impoverished students of Bullworth." She spat in a venomous tone under her breath, annoyed by all of the fighting even though this technically wasn't even her battle to fight. "What would we ever do without you?"

Pete decidedly ignored Beatrice, "But in the winter?" He inferred, looking over to where Mandy sat with her arms crossed over her chest, looking hatefully at the other girl. Both Lola and Beatrice remained at least somewhat quiet during all of this, which he expected. "Okay so like a romantic, snowy… thing for Pinky. The idea's still pretty vague. Mandy, what's your thing?"

"Literally anything other than that." She said, seemingly talking just to be mean and cruel for the sake of being mean and cruel. Pete wondered if she had been skipping meals again and that was why she had been so angry as of late. "Because that is stupid."

' _This is going nowhere,'_ Pete realized, _'Time to end this before we have ANOTHER riot at Bullworth'_

"Um, wow okay. Look at the time!" He said, "Our meeting is over, we'll have to discuss everything else on our agenda next week." Winter Formal had been the first and only thing on their twenty point agenda. Pete really wished there was a teacher in this room, someone who could mediate with a little more authority than he was really able to do.

Everyone cleared out with a sudden sort of quickness and he took a huge, cathartic breath in relief. He didn't like being in the spot light and he hated all of the responsibilities put upon him as Head Boy, but he put up with it because he was actually really good at it and he knew that it looked great on college applications.

"That was really something, huh?" Lola spoke from behind him, "Two hours wasted on talking about corsages and stupid flower arrangements." It was pretty obvious to him that she didn't care about the dance or anything like that.

"Oh… yeah. I was pretty close to texting Jimmy to pull a fire alarm." he joked with an awkward sort of laugh. Despite her less than stellar reputation, Pete generally liked Lola – she was always nice to him and even he was almost entirely sure that she was doing it to get something out of him, he liked it when people were friendlier to him…or even bothered to notice him at all. He preferred people being nice to his face instead of belittling, humiliating and committing violence upon him to his face.

Lola laughed at that, "That Jimmy, he will do pretty much anything for ten bucks."

"He will, he will…" He agreed with a nod, "Pretty much anything, I mean, he'll have sex for free."

Then Lola thought it was a perfect moment to run her fingers over the inside of Pete's arm. She didn't even have a chance to say anything to the scrawny teen before Pete giggled nervously and stepped back a bit, almost shocked that she did that. "Are-are you flirting with me?" He asked as he walked back "Seriously… Lola, I'm gay." he added, making sure to keep away from her in case she still didn't get it. "And don't say anything about sexuality being a spectrum or whatever because that's just not true. I'm gay. One hundred percent… only into guys. I thought everyone had known by now."

Lola didn't seem bothered by this in the least, "Can't blame a girl for trying, can you?" she said with a shrug. "I assumed that you were… _probably_ gay but I didn't want to assume anything. A lot of straight men are wearing pink these days."

Pete smiled gratefully at that and nodded. "No, I guess I can't." he agreed, "Well, um, I guess that I'll see you at the next student council meeting." he began to walk off but he was pulled back by the greaser – because of course she had to be stronger than him, everyone was. He looked at her curiously, with more than a small amount of offense taken at being manhandled like that, "Do you… need something?"

"I could walk with you back to your dorm," She offered, "I'm going that way any ways and you don't need anyone stupid or new giving you trouble."

He scoffed at that, "Uh, no thanks. I'm okay." he said, "Besides, it's not a smart idea for me to look like I'm biased or anything. If we're walking together people might think you're my friend and I wouldn't wish that upon anyone." he turned around again, "But I will look into getting more funding for the garages. I saw it on the agenda and I know it's important, and not just to the greasers. Maybe a fundraiser of something? I don't know, I'll figure it out on my own."

Pete walked off on his own back to his room. He was not ready to be surprised by the sight of his psychotic ex-roommate and ex-friend standing in his room, unpacking boxes. The minute that he made eye contact with the sociopathic, scarred teen he swallowed and began to regret not letting Lola walk with him just then.

A part of Pete just wanted to run in the opposite direction – leave school and never come back, it was a helluva lot easier than dealing with the return of Gary Smith. Another part of him wanted to scream at Gary for being so awful to him for years – his new found confidence was both a blessing and a curse, it seemed – and in the end neither of his wants won out and… he froze. Gary of course, took advantage of that opportunity to corner the smaller teen.

"Femme-boy!" Gary shouted, moving over to where the smaller teen stood stock still. "You don't call, you don't write…come on, Petey! Where's the warm freaking welcome? I mean, don't tell me that you expected I wouldn't be coming back to Bullworth. Jimmy I understand, he doesn't have two brain cells to rub together but you? I didn't think you were stupid." he shrugged, "Guess I was wrong. Happens to everyone, even geniuses such as myself."

Despite himself, Pete knew that Gary was right about him coming back. He should have expected his former friend to be back – the Smiths were almost as rich as the Harrington's. In another world, where the family hadn't had a completely blackened reputation and Gary wasn't known as the school psycho he might have been hanging around the preppies every day.

Pete let himself float away consciously as he took to subconsciously allowing himself to be literally backed into a corner by Gary Smith. He wasn't at all surprised by the fact that it was so easy for him to fall back into old patterns again. Here he was, practically baring his throat to the very person that he was terrified of – it was so easy for him to become that person again that it scared him to death.

It wasn't really surprising to the sociopath that Pete stood there, unspeaking and unmoving, "So you're gonna be my keeper again," he started, moving so that both of his hands were bracing each of Pete's shoulders. Gary really noticed that Petey hadn't gotten any taller and he had, so their height difference really was noticeable. He couldn't help but get a little antagonistic then, "God, that's gotta be murder for you. Isn't that just terrible for you little Petey?"

Pete frowned at that, trying to edge away from the larger teen as he – literally – spoke down to him. He was pretty sure that Gary was going to hurt him and hurt him _bad._ He wouldn't be surprised if he ended up in the hospital today. "You're still so tiny." Gary commented in a crude sort of way, "Guess that you're never gonna grow up."

In that moment, Pete had made a split second decision to get away from his roommate while he still could. "S-stay the f-fuck away from me!" he snapped, before ducking under him and running out of the room again. Gary decidedly let him leave, watching him run off with a smug look on his face that Pete couldn't see. He wasn't at all worried about that less than warm welcome – nothing that Petey could do could be even half as painful as what the other students might do to him, it was gonna be hell for him not to get violent every second of every day at Bullworth – that the smaller teen gave.

Pete was stuck with him – he'd have to come back and he knew that Pete was naive enough to believe that even horrible, awful, manipulative people like Gary Smith can change. He was a staunch believer in second chances and, if nothing else, Gary knew exactly how to play "Remorseful and Changed."

It would be an eventful senior year.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes: Pete and Gary have a (lovers) quarrel, Gary gets his ass kicked and Pete comes to the rescue despite his better judgment. Also a few pepperings of flash backs.**

 **Warnings for canon-typical violence, mentions of child abuse of all kinds and a bit of predatory behavior (from Gary obviously)**

 **Word Count: 5,791**

* * *

Seeing as how he was helpless to do anything other than have Gary as his roommate Pete had come up with his own system to keep himself safe. The system being that Pete made sure to keep at least six paces away from Gary at all times.

It was a really flawed system, especially when you factored in that Gary kept trying to talk to him and the sociopath was much more persistent than Pete could ever hope to be. It couldn't have been more than a few weeks and already, Pete was getting sick of having to avoid the other teen like he was the plague and he was pretty sure that Gary was getting sick of being ignored.

Both of them knew that it wouldn't take them long before the thick tension between them would erupt in some kind of explosion. They couldn't keep avoiding each other like they were – this was even more unhealthy than the weird, volatile relationship that they had before.

The weirdest thing about it was that it wasn't that he was still really all that angry at Gary – it was more like, he didn't want to have the chance to forgive the other teen. Because he would. If he was given the option to forgive Gary – no matter what the mentally unstable sociopath had done – he would always, _always_ forgive him. He was trying his best not to let himself fall back into that situation again.

Pete was the one who did most of the exploding when it came to situations like this and, as he always did, he exploded in a really pathetic way. "Gary I just- why can't you just leave me alone?" he asked in an exasperated sort of way. "D-did you just trick the asylum into letting you out so you could torture me for, forever? Just… because it's fun for you to cause me emotional and physical pain?"

Gary pretended to be offended at what Pete said, "Aw, come on Petey!" he said in a fake apologetic tone, "You know that I was only physically abusive like… a third of the time. Come on, Femme-boy, if you're gonna accuse me at least be accurate about it."

Pete rolled his eyes at that, refusing to acknowledge the other teen or anything that he said, because he was honestly getting really tired of Gary being mean and belittling him like this. "Whatever, Gary." he said, trying to edge away from the larger male with little to no success – Gary was always caging and boxing him in these days, it was getting to be a real issue. Gary's hands were literally squeezing his hips at that moment and he enjoyed it more than he would be proud to admit – he made a small and pleading noise in the back of his throat. "Jus- can you please just let me go?" he asked, begged, even though he was pretty sure that the other teen was just as likely to laugh at him as anything else.

With an exaggerated roll of his eyes, Gary did let him go and stepped back one pace to give the other teen a bit of space to collect himself. "Thank you." Pete said in a mostly honest tone despite his own best interest, when he was given the room to actually breathe. "What do you want from me, Gary?"

He figured that nothing that Gary would say would really surprise him as long as it was carefully crafted to cause him some sort of pain in some way, shape or form. Pete couldn't help but be a little surprised that what Gary ended up saying in a quiet, almost inaudible tone of voice, "I wanted to apologize. I've been trying to say I'm sorry to you for weeks."

Pete cocked his head to the side slightly, "You wanted to apologize?" he reiterated quickly, "You – Gary Smith, want to apologize to _me…_ in a display of remorse and regret?" He spoke slowly, like Gary was speaking in a foreign language that he was kind of fluent in and he was doing his best to translate it on the fly. "Yeah, see… no. I don't believe you. That doesn't- doesn't sound right. You would never do that. I don't trust you."

Pete tried to leave one more time and Gary pulled him back. Again. The smaller male pouted indignantly as he was boxed in once more but he was decidedly silent as he allowed Gary to say whatever he needed to say.

The sociopathic teen took a breath, like he was trying to get the words out with intense willpower and it physically hurt him to say anything nice. "Look," Gary started, "I know I wasn't the best friend that you could have had, I treated you pretty terribly and I uh… I feel bad for treating you like that."

"What about everyone else?" Pete questioned quickly, "You didn't just hurt me, you know. You hurt Jimmy too and you incited a riot-"

"I don't care about those other people." Gary responded in a blunt sort of way, "As far as I'm concerned they deserved everything that they got. You didn't, Petey, you didn't deserve any of that. You're actually not a piece of garbage, unlike everyone else here." he smiled then, an actual smile and not a glib shark-like grin. "Besides, we need each other. You keep me at least somewhat sane and I make sure that no one hurts you. It's how we worked before-"

Pete believed every word that Gary said up until the point that he had reminded him of their 'dynamic' because no matter how prettily Gary tried to spin it – it wasn't a dynamic that Pete really enjoyed all that much, even before the larger teen had had his psychotic break. Even when it was an almost healthy friendship, he had never been happy about being patronized and treated like he was helpless. He had just never had any other sort of choice about it.

"Well, um, actually people are nice to me now. I'm not getting bullied anymore." Pete argued back, putting in all of his effort to stand his ground about this, he couldn't let himself be sucked in and manipulated by Gary again, "So, I, I don't you need you around anymore to protect me or a-anything else! I don't- Gary, I don't really care about what you want b-because this is all my decision."

"Yeah, you seem real sure of yourself. You know people are just _nice_ to you to your _face,_ Petey." Gary argued back, getting meaner and meaner by the second. It was like not a single thing had changed between them. "Do you honestly think that any of those jack-offs actually want to be your friend?"

That kind of hurt, even if Pete knew that Gary was telling him the truth about that – he knew, deep down, that he would never be popular at Bullworth (he wasn't really Bullworth material) and it was nice enough for him to be treated civilly at the school instead of harassed like he had been before Jimmy, but he didn't need it to be spelled out for him like that.

There were a lot of things that he wanted to do – he wanted to fight back, get angry or even cry at this point, he was so frustrated – but he decided to just leave, literally run from the situation before it could turn into something even worse. He bit his lip as he prepared a half-decent excuse, "Um, I've got some… things to do right now, so I'm gonna go and… do them." he said, knowing how pathetic he sounded.

Pete couldn't really bring himself to care all that much about it though – Gary always had him feeling twisted around and confused, like he had no sense of who he was when the other teen was around. He needed to get away and quickly decided to spend as long as he could hiding in the art room – because he had a key and Ms. Phillips was probably there anyways, she probably wouldn't mind him spending any time in the room so long as he was working and creating.

For his sanity's sake, he could do that to stay away from Gary for as long as he could manage. It was either that or running away and joining the circus. Anything to escape the awkward hellscape that was being forced to put himself at the mercy of Gary Smith again. He hadn't even noticed that he left his roommate fuming with a dangerous sort of anger.

* * *

Pete spent all the time that he had, holed up in the art room, angrily sketching out a self-portrait because he had no other subjects to draw at the moments and he was, at the same time, more than a little mad at himself. He knew that he probably could have handled the spat with Gary a little better than he had.

Maybe if he had had the chance to prepare himself (emotionally and physically) for this, like, say if the head had even bothered to say a word of this to him instead of just dumping it all on him without any sort of warning to it, he wouldn't have had to fight with Gary like that. He hated fighting. Especially with Gary – he knew somehow that the other teen had some sort of revenge brewing for him and he couldn't even really blame him for it.

He was so invested in sketching and painting that he didn't notice Ms. Phillips walking over towards him. He practically jumped up a foot in the air when she tapped him on the shoulder, "Aah- I mean, yes? Do you want me to clear out or something Miss?" he asked in a way that he hoped sounded polite and not patronizing or sarcastic. Sometimes the things that he said just didn't come out right.

"Well, yes, I am going to be leaving soon and you can't be in here without some sort of adult supervision," She replied, eliciting an understanding nod from Pete. "But I also wanted to see what you were working on, you're a very talented artist. I enjoy seeing what you create."

Never one to be able to properly respond to praise, at least not with words, Pete smiled at her and nodded awkwardly. "I, I should go anyways. Ga- My roommate is probably mad at me and now he's probably thinking about destroying all of my things… again. So I need to do some kind of damage control before he does something even more… bad."

He cleaned up his supplies and work space as quickly as he could, sliding everything that was his into a Not-on-purpose paint splattered messenger bag – Gary may or may not have been responsible for a paint explosion that made it look that way – and got himself out the door as quick as possible with the assurance to himself that he might die tonight and it was probably at least a little bit his fault.

It was like he had completely forgotten what Gary was capable of, like he had forgotten that he was a dangerous person who could really hurt him without a second thought – even if Gary, since he had come back to Bullworth, hadn't done anything to hurt him yet… which was, admittedly pretty surprising – he hadn't kept his guard up like he should have and now he was probably going to die.

On the way back to his dorm, Pete ended up getting tripped – either accidentally or on purpose he wasn't sure – by a few jocks running past him. All of his things came out of his bag, clattering all over the floor. He groaned in annoyance and lowered himself down to gather them all up, "This is just what I needed today." he murmured to himself as he scooped everything up and haphazardly threw it all back in his bag. "Just the perfect ending to a perfect day. Losing half of my paints on this disgusting, disgusting floor. I totally feel good about this."

He stood up and frowned quizzically as he took notice of screaming and chanting. Despite his better judgment – and partly because it had been a pretty weird day for him and he had apparently felt like making bad decisions at t hat moment – he followed the source of the noise.

Pete was much less surprised than he should have been to see a circle of bullies and other cliques blockading Gary in as he fought with somebody in the middle – he selfishly hoped that it wasn't Jimmy, he didn't want to have to make that decision when he was still figuring out if he even wanted to reconcile with the sociopath at this point.

No matter what his thoughts on Gary were – like even if he hated him now he would feel this way – he didn't like the idea of him being trapped and forced to fight, he had been there before and it was just terrible. He hated it when people were kicked while they were down, it was just… a little too mean.

Even for Bullworth it was a bit much.

Pete edged in close enough to see who exactly Gary was fighting and was less than shocked to find that it was Johnny Vincent – he fought anyone that he thought might have been making a move on Lola, or if he suspected that Lola was making a move on them. So, he fought pretty much everyone with a pair of testicles. And a few of the girls too. He tried to attack Pete one time, even though he was sure that everyone and their grandmother knew that he was just a textbook, card carrying homo.

Pete watched the fight with a morbid sort of fascination, shifting from foot to foot anxiously as he tried to get an eyeful of the action at hand. He felt like he was a bad person for not breaking this up any sooner, or at least just as bad of a person as everyone else at the school, and he wasn't even really tall enough to see most of the goings on without standing on his tip-toes.

Somehow he managed to get himself almost at the front of the circle, where he was able to see everything. From what he could tell, Gary was completely on the defense in this. It was a big change from before – when he would be antagonizing and fighting every person that he could manage to make angry enough that also happened not to be Russell. It made it a little harder for him to just sit back and let him get hurt. No matter how much the resentful part in the back of his head might have wanted to.

"I know you've been messin' around with my girl, Smith!" The greaser snapped as he ducked forward to punch Gary in the head. Johnny's fist connected with the side of the scarred teens temple, eliciting an angry growl from him as he was struck on the impact.

"I'm not interested in that whore you call a girlfriend, alright?" Gary argued, pushing back against the greaser. Pete couldn't help but worry that Gary was outmatched – he knew that Gary could handle himself in a fight, but Johnny was bigger and Gary had been locked up in an asylum without the chance to get much exercise. He decided then, to watch and make sure that it didn't get out of hand.

" _ **You're lying!"**_ Johnny spat, grabbing him by the fronts of his shirt and pushing him down on the ground. He straddled Gary's hips, keeping him held down as he punched him over and over… and over again. "I know you did something to her, you fucking psycho."

Then it was like something switched in Gary, he changed from defending himself to actually bothering to attack the greaser back with a vengeance. He knew well enough how scary the scarred teen could get when he was truly angry and he pitied Johnny for a minute. He didn't think that

The first thing that he noticed was that, although Gary was still underneath Johnny and was still hindered by the greasers weight, Gary had his hands wrapped around the greasers' neck. The hold looked tight enough that if someone – anyone, even him – didn't intervene in the situation.

It was a fair assumption for Pete to have that it would probably be him – Gary wasn't really well liked, or liked at all at Bullworth these days – but he couldn't figure a way past the crowd, which seemed to be getting denser and denser by the second.

He looked at Gary helplessly, "G-gary!" he shouted, only to be ignored as the bigger teen dug his heels in, his fingernails cutting grooves into the greasers neck. "Gary! You can't just-" he groaned in frustration, realizing how hopeless this is. "Please don't end up doing something that you're gonna regret…" he murmurs to himself, arms crossed over his chest as he watched the display fearfully.

He only feels hope for his friend when he sees a group of prefects running towards the crowd – it was funny how quickly that it dispersed. The way that the prefects broke it up was the same way that the prefects broke up any fight or breakage of rules at Bullworth – with gratuitous violence.

The impending tackle is ugly – the prefects wrestle Johnny and Gary off of each other with a harshly spoken out bark to everyone else of, "CLEAR OUT AND BACK TO YOUR DORMS." and they all do except for Pete. Because he can't seem to do much more than stand there looking stupidly at the display. He's either very lucky or very unlucky that they notice him and decide to not immediately tackle him to the ground and send him off to Crabblesnitch as well.

"Hey!" One of the prefects shouts, not as loud as before but still harsh enough to make him flinch back a bit, "Kowalski, this is your roommate right?" he asked.

Pete hesitated for a minute before he nodded. "Y-yeah?" he said in a way that sounded anxiety ridden even to him and it only got worse the more that he allowed himself to speak, "He's my roommate but I wasn't a part of this at all-"

The prefect holds a hand up to shut him up and he promptly obeys, "Just take him back to his room and make sure he doesn't bleed to death." he says, "We could take them both up to the heads' office, we _should_ take them both to the heads' office but…" he trails off, "You understand."

The thing is that Pete _does_ understand, at least somewhat, what he's trying to say. He saw a few of the prefects watching and refusing to do so much as lift a finger to stop the fight until it looked like someone might die. That wouldn't look good for any of them and it was almost like Pete was doing them a favor by keeping quiet about this.

Someone who was a little more assertive – like Jimmy, if he was anything it was assertive – would have turned this around in their favor, blackmailed him right back or figure a way to get some petty vengeance in some way shape or form. As it stood, he was most definitely _not_ that person.

In the end he ended up doing what he thought was best, especially seeing as how he really had no idea how to say no anyways,"Um, alright I understand…can you help me get him there? He's… pretty heavy."

Pete mentally prepared himself for an evening of suffering through taking care of Gary – he can't help but wonder if pulling teeth would be a little more preferable to what he was going to be doing.

* * *

 _Growing up in Bullworth Vale – for the most part, if you ignored the first six years of his life – you learned quickly that Bullworth was, and always would be, a shit hole. You also quickly learned the names and faces of pretty much every person who came to said shit hole._

 _Gary didn't know the name or even recognize the face of the scrawny dork in a pink shirt that was supposed to be his new roommate. He voices all of his confusion pretty clearly with a gruffly spoken out question of, "Who the hell are you?" He's thirteen years old and he knows the names and faces of every single asshole in his grade and the two grades above him. He doesn't like not knowing things, he just finds it off-putting._

" _Hey I'm Pete." The pink-shirt clad boy said, extending a hand out in a friendly manner. "Pete Kowalski." He smiled in a nervous sort of way, like he wasn't sure if he was doing it right. Gary couldn't help but marvel at what a dork he was, even more so that he kind of liked the unapologetic stink of social outcast practically plastered onto the smaller boys' face._

" _I've never seen you before." He comments in a bland tone, a little too doped up on medication and disoriented by the change in scenery that Pete brought about._

" _I just moved here." He filled in quickly, "I used to live with my sister but she's going overseas and my parents won't allow me to leave the country so I'm…here I guess. At uh, Bullworth."_

" _My condolences." He quips back to the smaller male with a mockingly grave tone of voice. He thinks that he actually might like his new roommate. "Bullworth can be a hard place to get used to." he adds and it's almost friendly in nature. Which is funny, because he can't stand pretty much any one person that he comes across._

 _Pete shrugs, "I've heard that but… how bad can it really be? It's just a school right?"_

 _Gary almost laughs in his face, "You've got a lot to learn little Petey." He says and can't help but snort at the indignant pout and glare that crosses Pete's features at being called 'little'. "Don't worry though, I'll show you the ropes and hopefully you'll survive."_

 _Petey doesn't really seem convinced by all that, but he shrugs helplessly and agrees to follow Gary along anyways because he figures that it's better to stick with someone than go it alone anytime._

* * *

Gary Smith wakes up (simultaneously terrified at being woken up so abruptly and furious with himself for having the nostalgic dreams about Petey again) to the sight of his overly cautious, wimpy and girly dork of a roommate. An overly cautious, wimpy and girly dork that he's more than a little obsessed with but a girly dork all the same.

At first he doesn't even realize that the person whose wrists that he's holding in a death grip, he just thinks it someone out to get him. Jimmy? Maybe. His deadbeat, drunken asshole of a father? More than likely. The orderlies at Happy Volts who got a little too restraint happy? Could be. These are all expected outcomes. What he _doesn't_ expect is to see Femme-boy himself, standing stiff as a board in fear and trepidation, but looking him dead in the eye with a strange sort of boldness all the same.

"Hey," Pete greeted quietly, keeping himself as still as possible so that Gary didn't end up breaking his wrists. "Did you sleep well?" He asked, feeling more than a little stupid as soon as the words came out of him.

Gary dropped Pete's wrist like they had burned him, narrowing his eyes at his roommate. "Been molesting me in my sleep again, Femme-boy?" The sociopath quipped meanly, it was kind of amazing how cruel he could be even when he wasn't even fully awake, he accidentally pulled Pete in closer as he demeaned the smaller male. "I thought we already talked about this." he added sitting up really slowly, "Fuck, what happened? I feel like I got hit by a freight train…"

Pete faltered a bit, "You mean that you don't remember?"

"Sometimes I black out." Gary answered, saying it like it was the simplest, easiest thing in the world to wrap your head around.

Fuck, now he was really concerned. That was never a good thing when Gary was involved, especially when that concern was mixed in with more than a healthy dose of curiosity. "Well, is it something to do with your meds or-"

"Look, don't worry about it, Petey. I'm not gonna kill you in your sleep, moron." Gary snapped, tone getting harsher by the second. "Sometimes shit happens and I don't remember it." The sociopath gives him a cold look that says, in bright neon lettering it's so obvious, 'Drop it.' So of course, Pete does. What else could he do? "Now tell me what happened." 

"Uhh, well, I didn't really see _everything,_ you know?" Pete retorted, "I was in the art room and I heard screaming-" he was cut off by mocking laughter coming from Gary.

"Oh, so that's where you go when you have a temper tantrum?" The sociopath quipped mockingly with a look on his face that said nothing other than bad news for Pete. "Good to know."

Even though he could tell that Gary was baiting a reaction out of him, he took the bait – because he _always_ took the bait. "I didn't have a temper tantrum!" he snapped, "I disengaged from the… whatever that was, because you were being a jerk!"

"Ooh, ya really cut me deep there, Femme-boy." Gary snapped, tone practically dripping in sarcasm and mirth. He put his hand to his chest like he was 'oh so wounded' by what the smaller male said, "I think that I'll just go in the bathroom and slit my wrists you hurt me so bad."

"You're such a jerk, Gary!" Pete yelled back, "Why don't you just leave me alone?"

" _Why don't you_ _just_ _leave me alone, Gary?"_ The sociopath mocked back in that high pitched, girly voice that he used whenever he mocked Pete. "Why don't you make me, pussy?"

Pete finally gave up, fighting himself not to throw his hands up in exasperation. "Do you want me to tell you or not?" He spoke back indignantly, keeping himself completely closed off with his arms over his chest. "Because I could just… not tell you and go off to do something else and you're too hurt to follow me."

Gary sighed in an exaggerated and world weary sort of way, leaving the two of them hanging in an over dramatic silence for a few minutes while he pretended to think about it, "Fine. I'll drop it, now tell me what I did." he finally said, barely even looking over at Pete as he spoke. "Did I kill someone?" he asked jokingly when Pete didn't answer immediately.

"Well, almost." The smaller boy chirped back with a falsely pleasant tone of voice, "Y-you got in a fight with uh, with Johnny Vincent and you got…" he winced a little at the memory, "really, really, scarily angry and you two almost killed each other…. Then the prefects came and that's why you look and feel, probably, so messed up and hurt." He took to rambling to soothe the edge in his nerves.

Gary laughed at that, "Johnny? That pathetic grease monkey?" He laughed more, mocking and mean despite the fact that he was probably just as pathetic to the school as the greaser was. Pete wasn't an idiot so he didn't voice those thoughts, "Let me guess, he accused me of trying to make his 'girlfriend' cheat on him with me." He used air quotes when he said, "Girlfriend." like it was somehow up for debate that Lola was girlfriends with _anyone,_ let alone Johnny.

"He did," Pete agreed, nodding understandingly. He doesn't think he's ever heard of Gary expressing interest with anyone at Bullworth – knowing Gary, he probably thought that he was too good for everyone. "I know you didn't. Er, I think you did at least… but you know how it is with him."

The other teen laughed weakly, "I guess that if I was in love with a narcissistic, manipulative, pathological _whore_ who cheats on me for attention, I'd get a little paranoid too." He grinned at Pete in a mischievous sort of way, Pete takes comfort in it – because Gary wasn't being horrible to him and for once he was acting like they were actually friends instead of a victim and bully who used to be friends.

"Are you gonna leave him alone after this?" The smaller male asks, looking at Gary in a hopeful, pleading way that he knows won't do anything to encourage or discourage the sociopath any sort of way – the fact that he tries to deter Gary in any sort of way makes him feel like he might be even more crazy than the sociopath himself.

That was… a decidedly uncomfortable way for him to be thinking about himself, but here he was.

Gary pretended to think about it for a minute, "Eh," he said, speaking almost wistfully. "His life is already pathetic and sad enough without me ruining it for him. Besides," he took on a mocking interpretation of Crabblesnitch, "I need to keep my nose clean if I'm going to stay at this school."

He tried to get himself up again, groaning in pain almost immediately from the impact of moving himself even a little bit. He felt awful, worse than awful – he felt vulnerable. That's something he never wanted for himself, least of all to be vulnerable around someone like Petey. He couldn't bring himself to ask for the help of anyone, but especially not someone so weak.

"You should lay back a little." Pete suggested, trying his best so as not to appear too eager. It probably didn't help his case that he had his hands out like a bubble in front of the sociopath. He still had no idea why he cared so much for the other teen, but he did. "I'm supposed to make sure that you don't die." he added in a soft, almost apologetic manner. "It's just like old times I guess."

"Tch, so emotional Femme-boy." Gary crooned, "Alright, you can play nurse, little Petey. Just try not to get too touchy feely, perv." He says it like he has other options, other than accepting Pete's help. The smaller male doesn't take it personally, he understands that that's just the way that Gary is.

Still, he can't help but be a little resentful that he couldn't just be civil and say 'thank you' like a normal person. "I'm sure it'll be very hard for me to resist." Pete grumbled sarcastically under his breath as he gathered up all of the first aid supplies that the school nurse had practically chucked at him when he had come for help.

Gary noticed them and snorted, "Nurse give you those?" He asked, but didn't bother to wait for Pete to say anything in reply before he went on speaking, "You ever think about how this school could be if the faculty actually bothered to do their jobs instead of just making you or some other sucker do it?"

Pete laughed at that as he took to gathering up some gauze and Neosporin in his hands, "I don't think it would really be Bullworth if everyone here was competent." He commented in an almost cocky tone. It was surprising to Gary that he didn't hate the way that it sounded coming from the girly boys' mouth.

"Yeah, Bullworth would probably lose some of it's," he pulled a disgusted face, "Charm if it was an actual school worth going to."

Pete frowned in a thoughtful sort of way as he dabbed at the flesh of his bloodied up knuckles with antibacterial gel, "You know I'm still surprised that you even bothered to apologize." he commented, he spoke in a way that made it seem almost like he was talking to himself more than he was talking to Gary, "to me of all people."

"I used to apologize to you all the time." He reminded in a way that almost sounded fond. It hadn't been that long ago when a well placed apology and a sincere enough face where enough to get Petey to forgive him. Most of the time they were close friends, laughing and joking and enjoying each others company. Other times Gary might lash out and do or say something horrible, maybe even unforgivable to the smaller male. He would leave after he hurt Pete and then come back later, remorseful and overly apologetic. That had been their routine for a really long time.

The smaller boy nods slightly, "Yeah," he said, not unkindly. "You _used_ to do that all the time. Then you stopped apologizing. Or being nice."

It's painfully obvious to Gary how hard it is for Pete to try and be cold like that – he just wasn't the cold type of person, he was too soft and emotional and Gary knew that it was only a matter of time before Petey gave in and let him back in completely. He wasn't really all that much of a patient person so he opted for the hard sell.

"It's part of my therapy." Gary explained quietly as Pete worked on his cuts and bruises with a weirdly comforting gentleness to it. "I'm supposed to make amends to all of the people I hurt." He says it in a pretty flat tone, like he doesn't care about or believe in what he's saying – which is just as likely to be true as it is to be false. "So I'm trying to make some amends." he extended his hand out to the smaller male, as if he was offering up a truce, "Can you at least _try_ to think about forgiving me?"

"I don't know if we're there yet." Pete replied, quiet and cautious.

Whether or not he wanted to, Pete spent the rest of his day and night tending to Gary's wounds like he was his personal nurse. It was… surprisingly pleasant. They talked and laughed with each other while Pete made sure that Gary didn't get an infection or bleed to death all over the glorified prison cots that Bullworth liked to pretend were beds.

He could tell that they weren't really there yet (Pete still didn't trust him and was obviously remiss to be around Gary whenever there wasn't someone else between them) but he had plans to make sure that they got there and if what he planned out worked Femme-boy and him would be closer than ever.


	3. Chapter 3

**Authors Notes: This took a little longer than I thought it might because I got sick this week and slept for like, 20 hours every day for like a week. :/ Oh well, at least I got it done.**

 **Word Count: 6,121**

 **Trigger/Content warnings for this chapter: Harm to animals, dubcon kissing, drink spiking** **and** **v** **iolence**

* * *

Pete doesn't often get the opportunity to spend any time with Jimmy anymore. It's not on purpose – for the most part, at least – it was just that they were both so _busy._ Pete had all of his duties as head boy to attend to – and people kept asking him to do things for them, because he never said 'no' to any of them like the pushover that everyone was so sure that he was.

Meanwhile, Jimmy had his cool punk rock girlfriend, his blooming social life as the new king of the school – Jimmy Hopkins, the angry transfer student that every student hopes to be friends with – and he was always being invited to some party or another.

Which, Pete thinks with more than a healthy amount of forced optimism, is completely fine. Regardless of all that, they're still good friends and they manage to make time to spend with each other every once in a while. Even if it's mostly spent hanging out in dorm rooms or the TV room in the dorms.

Today's a little different though – because they're at the beach house that Jimmy "won" from the preps last year. It's also different in that Zoe is there, carting along a few bottles of cheap liquor. Zoe and Jimmy pass the bottle back and forth, taking a swig each time. They pass it to Pete too, but he doesn't really like liquor – he thinks it tastes like watered down lighter fluid – so he passes it on with no small amount of distaste for the amber colored liquid present and obvious in his face as he did so.

It isn't until Jimmy's buzzed enough that small talk turns into slightly larger talk – which is to say that the conversation was not important or deep enough to be talking about past traumas but not incessant enough to be discussing things like Halloween plans or the new movies coming to Bullworths shoddy movie theater this weekend (several sequels and a teen drama about vampires. It's a bad year for films it seems) Instead of either, it's somewhere in the middle ground where the conversations leave him mildly uncomfortable with himself and all of his life choices.

"Hey, Pete." Jimmy starts, immediately worrying Pete as to where this conversation might end up going. Still he can't really ignore Jimmy and get away with it, so he decidedly says,"Yes?" in a small and timid voice that makes it seem like he's trying to avoid being heard.

The larger male hesitates a bit, "I dunno, it might piss you off…" he says, and it feels a little like Jimmy is baiting him. He takes the bait, like he always does – he's an easily baited person.

"Just say what you have to say, Jimmy." Pete quickly resigned himself to whatever Jimmy might tell him, drawing his mouth into a thin line, like it would armor him against whatever his friend might have to say about Gary. Because he knows it's about Gary – this is one of his pet peeves about the ginger headed boy. Sometimes he treats Pete like he doesn't understand things or, worse, like he's _better_ and knows better than him. It's only slightly less infuriating than when Gary calls him queer or a girl.

Jimmy takes a second to put everything into words, like he's trying not to hurt Pete's feeling while he patronizes him. A for effort, Pete thinks bitterly, but it only serves to make him feel a little more insignificant.

To Jimmy's credit, he doubts that it's on purpose – Pete's actually fairly sure that he just exudes the energy of a victim and people tend to react to that in some way or another and it's rarely ever good. He's a little surprised when he finally says, "Has Gary been messing with you?" in a tone of voice that sounded almost uncharacteristically concerned with the pink shirt clad teens welfare.

Pete furrows his brow, a little confused by the wording that Jimmy used, "Messing with me how?" he asked dumbly, "I mean, he's Gary so 'messing with me' is kind of part of the territory with him." he shrugged apathetically like it was no big deal – just common knowledge at Bullworth.

"I'm not talking about that." Jimmy says, his tone taking on an annoyed edge that has Pete edging away a bit without even consciously deciding to do it. He hates it when people feel the need to yell or get hostile, he hates feeling like he's done something wrong without knowing what he could have done.

"Oh." He hums back, looking owlishly at the other teen with a sort of obliviousness that was commonplace for him, he really wasn't all that smart when it came to these sort of things. "Then what do you mean?"

"I'm just wondering if he hurt you or, tried to get some sort of revenge on you." He says simply, slurring his words surprisingly little considering how much alcohol he's already consumed, "Gary is weird like that, you know? And, I don't care if he's acting remorseful or somethin', I don't trust that rat faced bastard."

Pete chuckled a bit at that, "I don't really trust him either but… I don't know, I'm not mad at him anymore." he says, to the disbelief and disapproval of the other two. He knows what they're thinking and they're thinking, 'Why?', they are thinking, 'Who would willingly subject themselves to Gary Smith again. After what he did.' Maybe they're just thinking, 'Jesus, Pete, what the fuck is wrong with you?'

Zoe, who is much more drunk than Jimmy yet at the very same time she was much more coherent than her boyfriend was, decides to voice these all out loud, all at the same time."So, are you gonna give up and let him be your best friend again? Are you seriously thinking of forgiving him?"

She almost sounds angry, but he's not sure why. He's not at all ready to forgive Gary yet – not by a long shot, that's going to take a lot of time and effort from the scarred teen – but even if he _was,_ it's really not any of her or Jimmy's business. "I haven't forgiven him," He reassures them, "I'm just not angry at him anymore. I don't think I ever was." He says it like it's simple and it is to him, even if he understands the confusion that it brings about in others. "But I shouldn't be around him so much. I might forgive him if I start forgetting all the things he did to hurt me and start remembering all the reasons that I care about him so much."

They're too drunk to be having this conversation and likewise, Pete is much too sober. So they do the semi-adult thing and drop it. "Shit, you're a better person than I am." Zoe declared as a final statement on the subject of Gary Smith, leaning back on the springy, almond colored couch that they were all seated on. "I'm still holding some pretty intense grudges from Pre-K." she joked as an afterthought.

"Oh!" she exclaimed as if remembering some important truth, "We're going to a party this weekend, with the preps so you know it'll be fancy and there will probably be party favors."

"Okay." He replies curiously, wondering all the while why she is even bothering to tell him this. "I'm happy for you I guess?" he adds with a slight shrug of his shoulders. It doesn't even cross his mind that they might be trying to invite him to it until Jimmy interrupts his thoughts with, "You should come."

Pete felt really stupid for not catching onto that, "Oh… Oh!" he exclaimed softly, "Sure, I guess that…yeah, okay." he flounders around for intelligent thought for a moment, coming up empty. Pete doesn't really think that they will remember that they invited him… but if they do, it'll give him a few hours of probable intoxication where he won't have to think about Gary or his own stupidly mixed up emotions.

Just the thought of that is _amazing._

* * *

One useful thing that Gary had been taught at Happy Volts – probably the only useful thing that he had been taught, now that he thinks on it – is how to effectively cheek his medications. Which is definitely something important to know if he's going to survive at Bullworth with his head together and more than essential for his plans to work out properly.

Gary comes to the nurses office about five times a day – after breakfast, before lunch, after lunch, before dinner, after dinner – and waits for the nurse to watch him take his happy pills like he's a good, well behaved, rehabilitated teenage offender. The fact that he is most definitely not is entirely besides the point.

He sits down and greets the nurse with an almost over the top sort of pleasantness – the kind that they both know is a put on, but neither really care enough to point out. He'll say something like, "Hello ma'am, nice day isn't it?" or if he's not feeling pleasant enough to fake it, he'll slam his fingers on the fake wood of the nurses desk and say, "I'm ready for my pills."

The nurse doesn't really seem to care if he's pleasant with her or not – so long as she's sure he's taken the medication then she's done her job. She gives him the pills in a small plastic cup and hand him another cup filled with water – Gary always makes a big show out of showing her that he had taken them, seemingly just to be difficult with her. It's not like it's not something in character for someone like him, people expected him to be difficult enough that trying to do anything with or for him was close enough to pulling teeth that no one bothered to do more than the bare minimum with him.

That sort of revulsion that people now have for him works more in his favor, with most people, than pretending to give a damn about the idiots – their feelings, wants and the things they seem to obsess and care about so much – at this school and in this shitty town. It makes it so much easier to get away with pushing the pills under his tongue and deep in the back of his throat if the nurse doesn't want to spend any more time than she has to.

After the – hopelessly negligent – nurse done administering his medications, she sends him off without even a word, just a gesture of her hands towards the door. Gary can't really complain as he finds it all to be a waste of his time anyway.

Pretty soon, he is back in his shared dorm with Petey – the smaller teen sitting cross legged on his own bed with a sketch book in his lap, his hands working quickly and efficiently against the canvas paper with so much determination and focus that he doesn't even notice Gary come in until the sociopath slams himself down on his own mattress.

Petey jumps in shock from the sound, incidentally snapping the charcoal pencil in two as he did so. It takes him a minute to recover his composure, "H-hey." he says, holding up one of his hands in an awkward wave. "Meds?" he asked, seemingly just to be polite.

Gary decidedly ignores how forced and put on the words that Petey says to him sounds in favor of returning the forced politeness, "Meds." he parrots back in a deadened tone.

Pete doesn't say anything else, just roots around for another pencil and goes back to sketching – Gary doesn't say anything else, either. The silence is cold and stifling – it almost feels like Gary is choking on it, like the tension in the air is being stuffed down his own throat.

There's not much that he can really do about it though – the smaller teen is still hesitant to talk to him or be around him without some sort of buffer between them – so he lets it be and lays back on his own mattress, laying his hand flat against his chest as he let himself think without any baggage or impedance being brought about by his medications.

Hours later, when Femme-boy is curled up on his own mattress in a messy cocoon of blankets, sheets and pillows Gary is still awake. Still thinking. Still plotting and still planning. It's not until he's completely exhausted, enough that even his constantly running brain can't keep him up, that he manages to get some sleep.

* * *

 _Sometimes – despite every instinct that he had screaming as loud as it could at him not to – Gary couldn't help but do horrible things to the people that he liked. It was a weird, pathological thing that he did – he couldn't help but just hurt and compulsively push away the people that he was close to._

 _Since he had become friends with girly little Pete Kowalski, he ended up hurting him **a lot.** He messed with Petey every opportunity he got in progressively more weird and messed up ways. In his defense, it was pretty hilarious to see the way that Femme-boy reacted to being antagonized and teased in the aggressive way that Gary tended to act._

 _Sometimes he went a little – or a lot – too far and he actually did something objectively horrid that even he could feel some sort of remorse for. Sometimes he felt like he didn't go far enough – didn't glean enough of a reaction out of the smaller, weaker boy and he felt regret in those times. Sometimes it was a strangely amazing mix of the two – then he felt nothing more than pride in himself. Sometimes the methods fell in his lap like it was fated that he did these horrible things to the people that he liked._

 _One of these days, that method and form of fated gratuitous torment came in the form of a tiny rodent running around their room like he owned the place. He knew well that Petey didn't like bugs or wild rodents – a fear of diseases that were naturally found in most common pests had been drilled into him since he was barely old enough to speak – so when Gary caught the small rodent, there was a small hint of relief in his features. It was practically intoxicating for Gary to give him some hope, only just to take it away without a second thought and have him feeling worse than he was before._

" _I could just snap it's neck," Gary said as he hoisted it up by the tail – it squirmed around in complete terror and kept trying to scurry away from him. It almost reminded him of Petey in the way, small and insignificant and helpless to stop him from doing whatever the hell he wanted, no matter how much it wanted to be free from his tortures._

" _No!" Petey shouted, crossing his arms over his chest in a defensive manner. The taller teen didn't understand why he cared so much, only a few moments ago he was cringing at the sight of the rat scurrying around their room."Gary that's horrible! J-just take it outside or something, don't be a jerk."_

 _Pete always used the same kind of phrases to try and placate Gary into stopping or just into leaving him alone – it hardly ever worked, he didn't know why he kept trying with the sociopath._

 _Gary found himself preoccupied with the squirming rodent in his hand, "Don't you have any better come backs, Femme-boy?" he asked in a bemused sort of way. "Stop it, Gary! Quit it, Gary! Don't be such a jerk!" he mocked in a high pitched, overtly feminine tone._

 _Pete set his mouth in a grim line – the sociopath couldn't help but think that it was a really good look for him – and shook his head disapprovingly. "Whatever, Gary. Just… don't kill it, it's just a harmless animal." he looked at the rat helplessly, almost like he was relating to it in a special sort of way, despite the fact that he didn't want it around him,"You can't… I… just please don't do that."_

" _I **should** just snap it's neck." Gary reiterated with a sort of glib coldness that he hasn't displayed in a long time. He noticed Petey stepping back from him, almost shocked that he would even say something like that out loud. He groaned melodramatically at the smaller boy,"Ugh, Fine!" he said,"I won't do anything else to it, Femme-boy. Don't be such a baby."_

 _The smaller boy gave Gary this 'look', like he didn't think he was being dramatic or babyish in any sort of way, like he wanted to tell Gary exactly how ridiculous he was acting, like he wanted to just give up on him and call Gary a psycho and abandon him like everyone else – but he would never, ever even dare voice any of his complaints to the bigger teen, he never did. Petey would never do any of those things and that was what made him so great._

 _The sheer amount of torture that Femme-boy could tolerate before he got legitimately angry or broke down out of frustration was actually impressive, though he would never admit that to Pete out loud. He could take punch after punch – physical or psychological – and he would keep standing. He'd get pushed down and he would get back up, like nothing had even happened._

 _He frowns, bemusedly thinking of the pink shirt clad boy as he deposits it in Pee-stains bed. He figures that it's a bit of charity – it's the closest that Algie will ever get to having something in bed with him._

* * *

Despite the fact that Gary had barely gotten any kind of sleep, Pete is the one who wakes up exhausted and practically brain dead from how depressingly tired he was. He felt heavy – that was probably the only way that you could really describe it. His head leaned forward a little bit as he walked and his eyes drooped – it probably looked like he was withdrawing on some sort of drugs instead of whatever it was that he happened to be feeling.

The brain dead feeling that he has lasts far into the day, through his classes and most of his after school activities. It peters out a little bit by the obligatory student council meeting – they happen twice a week, on every Monday and Friday. The meeting goes at least somewhat decent – there's very little fussing or arguing that happens between the cliques and Pete manages to reign in his own annoyances and frustrations with everyone. They all want _things_ from him and that gets fucking exhausting.

By the end of it, when everyone else has been filling out of the small room, Pete is still sitting in his chair with his face in his hands. It's like he's feeling exhaustion on a deeper level than just, "I had a bad nights sleep," or, "I slept for just a little too long and I'm over-tired."

It's like he's feeling it on a deep, existential level. Like merely existing at this point and time is what's causing him all of his problems. The thought of that is about just as dizzying as everything else that he has been feeling and dealing with – things like, being Head Boy, dealing with Gary, dealing with Jimmy, compulsively caring for other people when he should be focusing on himself.

He's so caught up in his own bubble and thoughts that he doesn't notice Beatrice edging towards him with a bit of concern in her features. "Peter?" Beatrice asks, drawing his attention from the dizzying head space that he had been occupying for the last several minutes. "Are you feeling quite alright?" She asks him with a concerned lilt in her voice. Pete can't help but think about how she always calls him "Peter", no matter how many times he lets her know that he refers to be called "Pete."

"Hm? What?" Pete said, looking up and over at the nerdy girl with a quiet sort of exhaustion. "Um, sorry Beatrice… I'm just tired I guess. Did you need something?" he asks, expecting for her to ask him for something or other – especially now that his guard was down and he would be quick to say "yes" to someone just to placate them and have them leave him alone.

Beatrice shook her head slightly, "No, I just thought that you seemed troubled." She told him, "You've probably heard that I plan to attend medical school and be a doctor."

He smiled in a patient sort of way, "So you've said." he told her with as much politeness as he could force himself to bring. "Sorry, what does this have to do with anything?" Long story short, he wasn't as polite as he could have been if he was feeling a little better.

"Well," She starts, almost condescending to him. Then she's rambling and he can't get her to stop talking about the medicine of it all, "Exhaustion can be very dangerous for someone. Have you gotten much sleep? Probably not, with Gary Smith as you're roommate. I'd imagine he hasn't changed all that much. You should be getting at least eight hours a night, obviously, but if you _don't_ then it can affect every aspect of your life and-" she trails off, like she just realized that he couldn't care less about the science behind sleep patterns. "You should get some extra rest tonight."

"I can't." Pete replied to her as nicely as he could, "Because, I'm- well, I'm actually going to a party tonight. At Harrington house." he's never really been _invited_ to any parties before – it's been more like someone forced him along for the ride – so he's feeling really excited about it. He finally feels like he is a part of everything and he _loves_ it. "and I don't want to miss that. I'll be fine anyways, I'm just having a bit of an off day today."

"Yes, I heard about that." he wonders where, for a minute before remembering that her roommate is Mandy Wiles, she probably hears about these sort of things all the time. "Apparently there isn't an invitation. People can just come and go as they please." Beatrice hummed, acting like she was already a professional and completely above partying and enjoying herself like a normal seventeen year old. Pete truly doesn't understand her. "I thought about coming but…it's not for me and I'm worried they might do something cruel." her expression softens a bit, "Aren't you worried about something happening?"

"They're not going to be mean to me." Pete refutes her and for what it's worth it _is_ the truth. He knows that people like Mandy Wiles and Pinky Gauthier – girls who he was unabashedly terrified of – were civil with him because as it stood now, he could do things for them and it was painfully obvious to him that it was the only reason they weren't currently making his life into a living, breathing nightmare.

He had just a bit more social status at Bullworth these days and he kept trying to make things better for a school that had done nothing but give him a litany of psychological complexes and emotional issues. He was happy to take advantage of any perks that he might glean from his new role at the school. No matter how little or large the perks may be.

It's almost enough to stave of the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach that tells him to crawl into his bed and just stay there for the rest of all time, just nap until he becomes a rotting, stinking corpse. He ignores the depressive way that he feels in favor of a hopefulness for a good night. It's a sort of hopefulness that borders on naive for him to have. He knows better than most that good things don't last at Bullworth – he knows well that this school tears people don't, not build them up.

* * *

Gary arrived at Harrington House about an hour after the party started – pretty much everyone at the school was invited, so it wasn't like he was going to be turned away for crashing but he knew that it would be easier to get around without any incident if everyone at the party was too drunk or high to really care enough that he was there breathing the same air that they were.

Unless, that person happened to be one Jimmy Hopkins – who managed to be insufferable as all hell with or without any substances. Jimmy rounded on Gary like he was a criminal that just needed to be stopped – he supposed that he sort of was, but Jimmy had no real reason to believe that. To any onlookers, it seemed like he was being just as paranoid as Gary had been the year before.

Gary thought for a moment that it would probably be a better idea to just ignore the bully and lose himself in the crowd. After all, Jimmy really wasn't his target and he didn't want to lose sight of what he wanted right now. That became a little more difficult to deal with – at least not without some sort of violence or mayhem – when Jimmy kept calling for him.

He finally turned around to look Jimmy in the face once he was sick of ignoring his former frenemy when Jimmy was seemingly so persistent to get his attention. "What?" He snapped out at Jimmy in a quietly angry sort of tone. Most of the time, he managed to keep himself together by ignoring people and he hadn't said a word to Jimmy since he had returned to Bullworth. It was better that way, he knew that for sure now that he could barely contain his own anger with the ginger headed teen.

"The hell are you doing here, Gary?" Jimmy was suspicious of Gary, even more so that he hadn't done anything in the past month or so since he had been readmitted to Bullworth. It just didn't add up to him that he wouldn't be out for some kind of revenge or bloodshed. He had never really trusted Gary – not even as far as he could throw him – and the fact that Gary had been keeping his head down only set off red flags for him.

"Um, partying." The sociopath responded in a mockingly deadpan tone of voice. "I don't know, Jimmy. What are _you_ doing here? Collecting money for UNICEF?"

"Whatever man," Jimmy replied in a surprisingly sober kind of way. "You're up to something I just know it. You're gonna do something to Pete, or me-"

Gary pulled an amused face at the implications of what Jimmy was saying and he was quick to cut the bully off,"Tch, getting a little conceited aren't we Jimmy-boy?" He crooned, "How would you know that _I_ after _you_? Maybe I'm here to take advantage of little Petey while he sleeps off half a beer. Maybe I'm here to confess my undying love for Russell!" Gary laughed like it was the funniest thing that he had ever heard anyone said before he continued on, "Ugh… _ **Relax**_ James, I'm just here to get messed up for free like everyone else here."

Gary held his arms out in a mockery of a surrender before he pushed past Jimmy in favor of walking towards an assortment of drinks, pills and what had to be spiked punch. He decided to stay away from the punch – because that was how you ended up date raped or a dead body at one of these parties – and filled a red solo cup with beer from an annoyingly fancy looking keg.

He went off in search of Petey – half of him expected to see him sitting on a bench, looking vaguely uncomfortable and annoyingly sober and the other half of him expected the Femme-boy himself to be so fucked up that he couldn't even stand properly. What he actually got, once he caught sight of Petey through a blurry and dense crowd, was somewhere in the middle of everything.

Petey seemed to be enjoying himself just fine – Gary was pretty sure he had been digging into that drugged punch, knowing him he probably had no idea that it was even spiked. He could be really stupid when it came to these sort of things – hanging over some jock that he couldn't be bothered to differentiate the name of (they all kind of looked the same to him) in a needy sort of way that really seemed to fit in with everything that he knew about him.

Gary meant to follow along and grab the smaller teen – wrench him away from the jock if he had to, he didn't really care what these people thought of him – but he ended up getting caught up by a very drunk Christ Martin hanging off of him in practically the same way that Petey was hanging off someone else.

It was kind of funny to him that the red headed cheerleader still seemed to have this annoyingly obvious crush on him – even after everything that happened. Most people these days just kept away from Gary – they kept a cautious sort of distance from him, like he was a ticking time bomb or he would end up escalating and bringing in a gun to school one day if the students of Bullworth didn't watch themselves around him. Christy Martin didn't seem to have any of this sort cautiousness about him – it was simultaneously refreshing and hilariously stupid.

She kept hanging off of him – she didn't seem to understand how the hell to take the hint, ever, even when she was sober so why would she get it now – and he ended up humoring her. If for no other reason than because of the fact that he didn't want to have to deal with a crying, dramatic red head for the rest of the night.

So, he rolls his eyes and stands there, placid and unmoving like he was just a poorly rendered statue of himself, as she keeps trying to kiss him. Trying is the keyword here – because she manages to miss every single time that she tries to push her lips against his and it's more than a little funny to him how inept she seems at all of this.

The sociopath correctly assumes that she will tire herself out and pass out in minutes. It doesn't take much longer before she's slurring more and more, moving slowly and lethargically – he's not surprised when her eyes close and he doesn't really care all that much about her anyways. Gary pushed her back against the wall without any force and watches her slide down onto the floor.

"Fucking thank god." Gary mumbled to himself in a bitter tone as he walked away from her in complete disgust with her. It doesn't take him long to find his pink shirt wearing, nervously stuttering target and he quickly notices the same nameless jock boxing him in on one of the beds in the room.

He keeps touching Pete and muttering things like, "Come on." or, "Relax…" (all things that sound pretty stereo-typically Date-Rapey to Gary.) While Pete sluggishly protests against him – saying no and trying to push him away, with little success.

Gary's not really happy when people touch what he's deemed as _his_. So, it makes perfect sense to him when he grabs a heavy, ceramic figure – something resembling a china doll – and wacks Pete's attacker on the back of the head. After the impact of the ceramic doll hitting the back of his head – hard enough to stagger and hurt him but not hard enough for him to be unconscious – he rears back with an agonized cry, jumping back and away from Pete to look at his attacker. He probably doesn't expect Gary Smith (The school psycho) to be looking at him with a cold sort of fury in his eyes.

"He said no," The sociopath replied in a tone of voice that almost sounded pleasant. "So get the fuck off of him. Or else," he looked at the doll with a sort of purpose, "You're gonna become very, very acquainted with _this_ china doll right here." he smacks it hard against his hand, grunting slightly from the impact, "Shit, it's kind of heavy isn't it?"

It is pretty much common knowledge in Bullworth – and not just the school, the rest of the town as well – that Gary Smith is criminally insane. So it's no surprise when the other guy backs down almost immediately. Gary heard a, "Fucking psycho" directed at him from the staggering guy and Gary smiled and waved him off with a sarcastic kind of gleefulness.

"You look like shit." Gary told him eloquently as he helped the smaller boy up enough so that he was leaning up against the headboard of the bed that he was on. Pete just smiled stupidly, blissfully unaware of just how much of a mess that he looked like with his clothes all messed up and jumbled and the aura around him that just screamed, "I'm on a bunch of drugs. Assholes! Take advantage of me, please!"

"Hi, Gary." He hummed back, head lolling from side to side. "I didn't realize you were here. Well, I thought I saw you but…"

"I mean that little to you, Femme-boy?" Gary hummed sarcastically, "Ouch."

Peteys' features scrunched up in confusion, all furrowed brows and slight pouts, "N-no that's not… I think about you a lot." Gary started laughing and even in his drugged state, the smaller teen realized that something he said was wrong, "Wait, no. I, I mean… I don't mean…" he trailed off with a confused and helpless whimper that had the sociopath taking pity on him – or at least pretending to.

"You know what?" The sociopath remarked with put on of grandiosity that was almost like a caricature of himself, "I'll let it go." then he had an idea, "If you do something for me, first. Then we can both forget all about how heartless and cold you are, Petey."

Pete doesn't even think about it for more than a second before he nods in agreement, "Um, um, okay, sure. What do you need me to do…?"

Gary grins, "Just close your eyes, Femme-boy."

Pete's much too out of it to actually think bout what's happening or any red flags being raised, so he obeys and closes his eyes with an amused, dopey smile on his face. If he were a little more sober, he probably would have been shocked when Gary reached forward, grabbed a hold of the smaller teens shoulders and kissed him. But he wasn't sober – not even a little bit – so all he could do was lean into the contact and completely melt against him.

Gary pulls away from the kiss with a victorious look on his face – like he had successfully mark his territory again and all was right once again in Gary Smiths' world. Satisfied with what he got from the smaller boy, he hooked his arms underneath Pete's knees and picked him up.

"Wait-wait-wait!" The smaller teen exclaimed – shocked and a little scared by the sudden motion of Gary picking him up like he did. "G-Gary, what are you doing?"

"The hell does it look like?" He questions back in an acerbic tone of voice, then he sighed and explained himself slowly, like Pete was too stupid to understand him otherwise. "I'm carrying you back to the dorm, stupid. You aren't in any condition to go anywhere." then as an afterthought, "And I'm not letting you stay here, you'll just get molested all over again."

"A-are you sure?" Petey questions, "I think… I can walk, I think."

Gary huffs at that, "Please. I'll be fine." he responded with irritation present in his tone, "You weigh like three and a half pounds, Femme-boy. I think I can manage. Just stop squirming. It's annoying."

So Pete does – partially because he doesn't want to make Gary angry and partially because he's too tired to properly fight with the sociopath. He goes limp as a kitten and lets his questionable one time best friend – turned enemy – turned _whatever they were right now_ carry him back to their dorm in one piece.

When they're back in their dorm, he deposits the smaller teen back on his bed and lets himself think about how the next time that he kisses Pete, he'll be completely sober and he'll be begging him to do a hell of a lot more than just _kiss_.


End file.
